Indigenous Peoples’ statement on the coup in Paraguay

FAPI Statement on the current political and social situation in Paraguay

Following the dismissal of President Fernando Lugo through an abrupt and traumatic process for all of us, and given the present political situation in Paraguay, FAPI, a body that unites several indigenous peoples’ organisations of the western and eastern regions of the country, wishes to inform the national and international communities that:

1. Our Indigenous Peoples’ Organisation demands that the Government installed by Congress respect Indigenous People’s human rights and our territorial rights over which we have sought recognition for many years. In particular, we call for respect for the rights of our brothers in voluntary isolation, including the Ayoreo people in northern Paraguayan Chaco, and the Mbya Guarani in the Tekoha Guazu Traditional Territory located in San Rafael National Park Reserve. We demand that the Paraguayan State cancels its historical debt to the Mbya Guarani and Ava Guarani peoples stemming from the construction of the Hydroelectric Dams of Yacyreta and Itaipu, respectively. Indigenous Peoples need legal guarantees for tenure rights to our ancestral and traditional territories, and we reject the statements made by the Acting President, Federico Franco, arguing that “the country’s problem is not the land, but to provide income and create jobs”.

2. We are deeply concerned about the comment made by a person in the Executive, in a statement made to the international press saying: “who is responsible for guaranteeing that civil war will not break out (sic)…”*. So far, the international community is witness to the fact that that all expressions in favour or against the person to assume the Presidency have been peaceful and non-violent. These unjustified statements, stemming from a person that holds the position of Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, could generate an unnecessary state of alert among the police and armed forces, and these words could become the cause of violent and reprehensible actions. It seems that these statements have no basis in fact and are directed against those of us exercising our freedoms and defending and demanding our rights. On this point we affirm that dissent is a fundamental right in a democracy.

3. Indigenous communities and their settlements have frequently been victims of violence, especially at the hands of the National Police who have no justification other than the illegal defence of properties under fraudulent possession by third parties. These properties are in lands legalized by the State in favour of indigenous peoples, including lands titled and registered in the Public Registry of the General Directorate. In this way, the police actions are in violation of the Constitution and the law. We trust that these illegal actions will not be repeated, not only because of the harm they may cause, but also because they will further add to the illegitimacy attributed to the origin of the executive power of the government.

4. We have heard repeatedly from Mr. Federico Franco that Brazilians and so called brasiguayos will be privileged under this administration, and that they will receive ‘legal security’ over their productive resources, including land. We believe that indigenous peoples, peasants and all Paraguayans deserve the same commitment to security. We demand that the Executive power urgently abandon the historic practice of discrimination, and that the same guarantee for rights that it mentions be given in relation to our territories, rights that have been violated innumerable times under a dense blanket of impunity in both the Eastern region and in the Western Chaco region of the country.

5. Finally, we reiterate our hope that our collective and individual rights will not be violated during the time that your government will be in power, expecting that vigilance of human rights will not be affected by the serious democratic crisis in Paraguay, and that the authorities will fulfil their duty and obligation to respect the equality of everyone that inhabits the Republic of Paraguay, without distinction or privilege.

Despite these adverse conditions, the march arrived in La Paz on Wednesday 27th June and again received great support from the population of La Paz. However, the government is doing everything it can to undermine the credibility of the march and divide and weaken the movement. Specifically it has done the following:

– Criminalized leaders and activists, for example by jailing two young people from the environmentalist anarchist movement who had a strong presence in the mobilizations around the first march. (http://www.bolpress.com/art.php?Cod=2012053101)

Through these tactics the government is weakening support for the movement and clearly aiming to exhaust the marchers in order to avoid effective dialogue for long enough to get to the start date of the “prior” consultation, scheduled for 29 July. We are now at a tipping point because the march has not achieved open dialogue with the government despite having been in La Paz for one week, and if nothing happens before that date then it will become impossible to stop the project. Considering the Bolivian government’s good relationship with grassroots and activist movements, an urgent international outcry against this illegitimate consultation process could make the difference and tip the balance in favour of the indigenous peoples’ demands.

By updating and re-launching this petition, we can show Evo Morales that the world wants him to “walk the talk” after being named “Defender of Mother Earth” in 2009. This is not simply an internal political issue: the protection of the Amazon rainforest is vital for the future of our planet and if this project is allowed to go ahead then it will set the pace for others to follow. Equally, the illegitimate “prior” consultation violates the article 32 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that sets out: “States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources.”

Following our friends in Bolivia, is fresh news that police has used teargas and water cannons to repress the Ninth March.

The Ninth March, made up of some 1,500 indigenous marchers and their allies, arrived in La Paz on June 27, after a 62-day, 580-kilometer trek from the Amazonian lowlands to protest the government’s proposed highway through the Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS). Just hours before the march arrived in the capital, President Evo Morales settled a National Police mutiny that had seen six days of street clashes in the city. Morales had darkly warned that the mutiny was part of a plot by conservative opposition forces to set the stage for a coup d’etat. Vice President Alvaro García Linera attempted to link the Ninth March to the supposed plot, saying the government had evidence of a “Plan TIPNIS” to destabilize the Morales government. Esteban Urquizu, governor of Chuquisaca with Morales’ Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), cautioned, “both the police mutiny and the indigenous march are seeking violence or confrontation, as well as deaths, in order to blame the government.”

TIPNIS indigenous leader Fernando Vargas was quick to refute the charge. “Our mobilizations were never [intended] to overthrow the government but, on the contrary, have been to redirect government policies that have gone astray,” he stated. (NACLA News, July 2; La Razón, June 27)

An anonymous source in Bolivia, caught in the repression had this to say:

…a dodgy translation of the description i wrote out yesterday on a private message list:

What I have seen: those that were in the march shouted to let us into the Murillo Square, then went to the vice presidency and we kept shouting there. There several people joined our group, men and women, both people from the vigil and citizens in general. Some people (I don’t know exactly who) started throwing things like fruit at the police, then suddenly someone started to hit the shield of a police officer with a flag pole. This was enough for the police to justify launching tear gas and we all started running to escape the gases, including children who were with their mothers. From where we stopped half a block, I saw that people were still throwing things at the police. They continued releasing even more gas, so the streets became unbearable but several people continued there and I saw people throwing sticks at the police. I can not say who threw them. The police then began with the Neptune water cannon, sending high pressure water at the tents of the vigil. And I saw people fighting the police with wooden sticks. They continued releasing more gas, one person even told me that you could feel the gas 5 blocks away.

It would be interesting to know the story of someone else who was there, but for me the key question is who was the person who started to hit the shields with a stick? Someone told me it was a man and a citizen off the street, not one of the march, and he had seen the same person in other manifestations doing the same. We must find out who is and whether supports the movement and has an anger problem or if someone infiltrated that seeks to create confrontation. What is clear is that this person is to blame for generating violence and cause the police to react … On the other hand, is not justified in the police launch so much gas at a march of women and children just because ONE person showed them violence.

We must denounce this.

[youtube http://youtu.be/bmKXilO-1O8]

What the international community can do is to watch, comment and use our position to help our sisters and children and brothers. As fellow citizens of the spaceship Earth, we have an obligation to do what we can and not continue to turn a blind eye to things we feel we have right to ignore.

This Wednesday 20th June, a Global Day of Action took place. Civil society mass mobilization across the planet synchronized to highlight the issues of the Green/Greed economy trick, the need to protect rights of Indigenous People and Natural Heritage. The focus was the march on Avenida Vargas Presidente in Rio, where the Rio+20 circus continues to sustain the Green Machine.

The March was dominated by a RIOT of color, sound, colors and compassion… Massive buses moved through the march, with clowns popping their heads up everywhere and an amazing and probably uniquely South American sense of overwhlemingly unitedness swooped through the crowds. From anonymous masks to Via Campesina’s truck, giant Earth balloons and massive flags dominated this spectacle. Truly, the world was out in Rio, as tribes walked side-by-side amongst the obligatory political presence.

The OcupaDosPovos team arrived in typical anarchistic fashion, blocking the March in jest and stripping down to create a nude artistic intervention on the very steps that the occupation was hatched.

The night turned a bitter shade of oppression tho, as the police moved in on a group of participants of the March and kettles them, using batons and pepper spray to subdue and intimidate the crowd. This happened just after the international media left the march and here we provide insider footage of the police activities and actions. This is the true RIOt, we the people re having our rights violated, invaded by powers concerned with profit not people, slowly being led away from the try way of living we all know, into a bog of questionable policies and the art of pretending that everything is just alright.

[youtube http://youtu.be/4hfNmRjVxhs]

Watch the video, make up your mind and watch this space and any other channels you trust, follow whats happening and express solidarity through messages and localized actions to make this push and usher in the NU world, as we demand it!!!

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES GLOBAL CONFERENCE ON RIO+20 AND MOTHER EARTH”

We, the Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth assembled at the site of Kari-Oka I, sacred Kari-Oka Púku, Rio de Janeiro to participate in the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20, thank the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil for welcoming us to their territories. We reaffirm our responsibility to speak for the protection and enhancement of the well-being of Mother Earth, nature and future generations of our Indigenous Peoples and all humanity and life. We recognize the significance of this second convening of Indigenous Peoples of the world and reaffirm the historic 1992 meeting of the Kari-Oca I, where Indigenous Peoples issued The Kari-Oca Declaration and the Indigenous Peoples Earth Charter. The Kari-Oca conference, and the mobilization of Indigenous Peoples around the first UN Earth Summit, marked a big step forward for an international movement for Indigenous Peoples’ rights and the important role that Indigenous Peoples play in conservation and sustainable development. We also reaffirm the Manaus Declaration on the convening of Kari-Oca 2 as the international gathering of Indigenous Peoples for Rio+20.

The institutionalization of Colonialism

We see the goals of UNCSD Rio+20, the “Green Economy” and its premise that the world can only “save” nature by commodifying its life giving and life sustaining capacities as a continuation of the colonialism that Indigenous Peoples and our Mother Earth have faced and resisted for 520 years. The “Green Economy” promises to eradicate poverty but in fact will only favor and respond to multinational enterprises and capitalism. It is a continuation of a global economy based upon fossil fuels, the destruction of the environment by exploiting nature through extractive industries such as mining, oil exploration and production, intensive mono-culture agriculture, and other capitalist investments. All of these efforts are directed toward profit and the accumulation of capital by the few.

Since Rio 1992, we as Indigenous Peoples see that colonization has become the very basis of the globalization of trade and the dominant capitalist global economy. The exploitation and plunder of the world’s ecosystems and biodiversity, as well as the violations of the inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples that depend on them, have intensified. Our rights to self determination, to our own governance and own self-determined development, our inherent rights to our lands, territories and resources are increasingly and alarmingly under attack by the collaboration of governments and transnational corporations. Indigenous activists and leaders defending their territories continue to suffer repression, militarization, including assassination, imprisonment, harassment and vilification as “terrorists.” The violation of our collective rights faces the same impunity. Forced relocation or assimilation assault our future generations, cultures, languages, spiritual ways and relationship to the earth, economically and politically.

We, Indigenous Peoples from all regions of the world have defended our Mother Earth from the aggression of unsustainable development and the over exploitation of our natural resources by mining, logging, mega-dams, exploration and extraction of petroleum. Our forests suffer from the production of agro-fuels, bio-mass, plantations and other impositions of false solutions to climate change and unsustainable, damaging development.

The Green Economy is nothing more than capitalism of nature; a perverse attempt by corporations, extractive industries and governments to cash in on Creation by privatizing, commodifying, and selling off the Sacred and all forms of life and the sky, including the air we breathe, the water we drink and all the genes, plants, traditional seeds, trees, animals, fish, biological and cultural diversity, ecosystems and traditional knowledge that make life on Earth possible and enjoyable.

Gross violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights to food sovereignty continue unabated thus resulting to food “insecurity”. Our own food production, the plants that we gather, the animals that we hunt, our fields and harvests, the water that we drink and water our fields, the fish that we catch from our rivers and streams, is diminishing at an alarming rate. Unsustainable development projects, such as mono-cultural chemically intensive soya plantations, extractive industries such as mining and other environmentally destructive projects and investments for profit are destroying our biodiversity, poisoning our water, our rivers, streams, and the earth and its ability to maintain life. This is further aggravated by Climate change and hydroelectric dams and other energy production that affect entire ecosystems and their ability to provide for life.

Food sovereignty is one fundamental expression of our collective right to self-determination and sustainable development. Food sovereignty and the right to food must be observed and respected; food must not be a commodity to be used, traded and speculated on for profit. It nourishes our identities, our cultures and languages, and our ability to survive as Indigenous Peoples.

Mother Earth is the source of life which needs to be protected, not a resource to be exploited and commodified as a ‘natural capital.’ We have our place and our responsibilities within Creation’s sacred order. We feel the sustaining joy as things occur in harmony with the Earth and with all life that it creates and sustains. We feel the pain of disharmony when we witness the dishonor of the natural order of Creation and the continued economic colonization and degradation of Mother Earth and all life upon her. Until Indigenous Peoples rights are observed and respected, sustainable development and the eradication of poverty will not be achieved.

The Solution

This inseparable relationship between humans and the Earth, inherent to Indigenous, Peoples must be respected for the sake of our future generations and all of humanity. We urge all humanity to join with us in transforming the social structures, institutions and power relations that underpin our deprivation, oppression and exploitation. Imperialist globalization exploits all that sustains life and damages the Earth. We need to fundamentally reorient production and consumption based on human needs rather than for the boundless accumulation of profit for a few. Society must take collective control of productive resources to meet the needs of sustainable social development and avoid overproduction, over consumption and over exploitation of people and nature which are inevitable under the prevailing monopoly capitalist system. We must focus on sustainable communities based on indigenous knowledge, not on capitalist development.

We demand that the United Nations, governments and corporations abandon false solutions to climate change, like large hydroelectric dams, genetically modified organisms including GMO trees, plantations, agro-fuels, “clean” coal, nuclear power, natural gas, hydraulic fracturing, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, bio-energy, biomass, biochar, geo-engineering, carbon markets, Clean Development Mechanism and REDD+ that endanger the future and life as we know it. Instead of helping to reduce global warming, they poison and destroy the environment and let the climate crisis spiral exponentially, which may render the planet almost uninhabitable.

We cannot allow false solutions to destroy the Earth’s balance, assassinate the seasons, unleash severe weather havoc, privatize life and threaten the very survival of humanity. The Green Economy is a crime against humanity and the Earth. In order to achieve sustainable development, states must recognize the traditional systems of resource management of the Indigenous Peoples that have existed for the millennia, sustaining us even in the face of colonialism. Assuring Indigenous Peoples’ active participation in decision making processes affecting them, and their right of Free Prior and Informed Consent is fundamental. States should likewise provide support for Indigenous Peoples appropriate to their sustainability and self determined priorities without restrictions and constricting guidelines.

Indigenous youth and women’s active participation must also be given importance as they are among the most affected by the negative impacts brought by the commodification of nature. As inheritors of Mother Earth, the youth play a vital role in continuing defending what is left of their natural resources that were valiantly fought for by their ancestors. Their actions and decisions amidst the commercialization of their resources and culture will determine the future of their younger brothers and sisters and the generations to come.

We will continue to struggle against the construction of hydroelectric dams and all other forms of energy production that affect our waters, our fish, our biodiversity and ecosystems that contribute to our food sovereignty. We will work to preserve our territories from the poison of monoculture plantations, extractive industries and other environmentally destructive projects and continue our ways of life, preserving our cultures and identities. We will work to preserve our traditional plants and seeds, and maintain the balance between our needs and the needs of our Mother Earth and her life sustaining capacity. We will demonstrate to the world that it can and must be done. In all matters we will gather and organize the solidarity of all Indigenous Peoples from all parts of the world, and all other sources of solidarity with non-indigenous of good will to join our struggle for food sovereignty and food security. We reject the privatization and corporate control of resources such as our traditional seeds and food. Finally, we demand the states to uphold our rights to the control of our traditional management systems and by providing concrete support such as appropriate technologies for us to develop our food sovereignty.

We reject the false promises of sustainable development and solutions to climate change that only serve the dominant economic order. We reject REDD, REDD+ and other market-based solutions that focus on our forests, to continue the violation of our inherent rights to self determination and right to our lands, territories, waters, and natural resources, and the Earth’s right to create and sustain life. There is no such thing as “sustainable mining.” There is no such thing as “ethical oil.”

We reject the assertion of intellectual property rights over the genetic resources and traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples which results in the alienation and commodification of Sacred essential to our lives and cultures. We reject industrial modes of food production that promote the use of chemical substances, genetically engineered seeds and organisms. Therefore, we affirm our right to possess, control, protect and pass on the indigenous seeds, medicinal plants and traditional knowledge originating from our lands and territories for the benefit of our future generations.

The Future We Want

In the absence of a true implementation of sustainable development, the world is now in a multiple ecological, economic and climatic crisis; including biodiversity loss, desertification, deglaciation, food, water, energy shortage, a worsening global economic recession, social instability and crisis of values. In this sense, we recognize that much remains to be done by international agreements to respond adequately to the rights and needs of Indigenous Peoples. The actual contributions and potentials of our peoples must be recognized by a true sustainable development for our communities that allows each one of us to Live Well.

As peoples, we reaffirm our rights to self-determination and to own, control and manage our traditional lands and territories, waters and other resources. Our lands and territories are at the core of our existence – we are the land and the land is us; we have a distinct spiritual and material relationship with our lands and territories and they are inextricably linked to our survival and to the preservation and further development of our knowledge systems and cultures, conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystem management.

We will exercise the right to determine and establish priorities and strategies for our self-development and for the use of our lands, territories and other resources. We demand that free, prior and informed consent must be the determinant and legally binding principle of approving or rejecting any plan, project or activity affecting our lands, territories and other resources. Without the right of Free Prior and Informed Consent, the colonialist model of the domination of the Earth and its resources will continue with the same impunity.

We will continue to unite as Indigenous Peoples and build a strong solidarity and partnership among ourselves, local communities and non-indigenous genuine advocates of our issues. This solidarity will advance the global campaign for Indigenous Peoples rights to land, life and resources and in the achievement of our self-determination and liberation. We will continue to challenge and resist colonialist and capitalist development models that promote the domination of nature, incessant economic growth, limitless profit-seeking resource extraction, unsustainable consumption and production and the unregulated commodities and financial markets. Humans are an integral part of the natural world and all human rights, including Indigenous Peoples’ rights, which must be respected and observed by development.

We invite all of civil society to protect and promote our rights and worldviews and respect natural law, our spiritualities and cultures and our values of reciprocity, harmony with nature, solidarity, and collectivity. Caring and sharing, among other values, are crucial in bringing about a more just, equitable and sustainable world. In this context, we call for the inclusion of cultureas the fourth pillar of sustainable development.

The legal recognition and protection of the rights of Indigenous Peoples to land, territories, resources and traditional knowledge should be a prerequisite for development and planning for any and all types of adaptation and mitigation to climate change, environmental conservation (including the creation of “protected areas”), the sustainable use of biodiversity and measures to combat desertification. In all instances there must be free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples.

We continue to pursue the commitments made at Earth Summit as reflected in this political declaration. We call on the UN to begin their implementation, and to ensure the full, formal and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples in all processes and activities of the Rio+20 Conference and beyond, in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).

We continue to inhabit and maintain the last remaining sustainable ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots in the world. We can contribute substantially to sustainable development but we believe that a holistic ecosystem framework for sustainable development should be promoted. This includes the integration of the human-rights based approach, ecosystem approach and culturally sensitive and knowledge-based approaches.

We declare our solidarity and support for the demands and aspirations of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil found in the Annex to this Declaration.

New report reveals the scale of corporate control in the United Nations process….

From Friends of the Earth International

June 19, 2012, Rio de Janeiro – On June 19, 2012, on the eve of a key United Nations Summit due to take place June 20-22 in Rio De Janeiro [1], Friends of the Earth International will launch a new report exposing the increasing influence of major corporations and business lobby groups within the UN. [2]

“Governmental positions have been increasingly hijacked by narrow corporate interests linked to polluting industries and business sectors seeking to profit from the environment, the climate and the financial crises,” said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International.

The report presents a number of cases that clearly expose how UN policies and agencies have been excessively influenced by the corporate sector.

It also shows how this damages the ability of the UN to solve the various problems it is tasked with, removing its willingness to address the role of major corporations in causing many of the environmental, social, food and economic problems that the world faces today.

According to the new report, the positions of national governments in multilateral negotiations are increasingly influenced by business; business representatives dominate certain UN discussion spaces and some UN bodies; business groups are given a privileged advisory role; UN officials move back and forth to the private sector; and – last but not least – UN agencies are increasingly financially dependent on the private sector.

The new report also states that the UN has been working very closely with big business in developing and promoting the concept of ‘Green Economy’ which is selling out nature and people, and greenwashing a broken and unfair economic system at the expense of sustainable development.

More than 372 civil society organizations representing millions of people from around the world signed a statement -initiated by Friends of the Earth International and nine other organisations- denouncing the corporate domination of the United Nations. [3]

“The fact that the UN is increasingly catering to the demands of corporate interests diverts the UN from tackling the root causes of environmental, social and economic problems. The UN and this Rio+20 Summit should listen to the demands of the alternative Peoples’ Summit in Rio and take measures that will hold corporations accountable for their negative impacts,” said Lucia Ortiz, Economic Justice International Program Coordinator at Friends of the Earth International.

“The many examples of corporate capture are detrimental to the good work being done by many UN agencies and officials worldwide for the protection and empowerment of people. Allowing this to happen is putting both the UN’s and its member states’ credibility and integrity at risk. In fact this threatens to undermine the mission of the entire UN system and must be stopped, “ said Paul de Clerck, Corporates Campaign Coordinator at Friends of the Earth International.

WHAT THE CASE STUDIES SHOW :

– The Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative is being decided by an unaccountable, handpicked group, dominated by representatives of multinational corporations and fossil fuel interests, virtually without any involvement from or consultation with global civil society. Friends of the Earth International believes SE4ALL will not deliver its stated objective of doubling the share of renewable energy.

– Support for agriculture and food policy appears to be compromised by corporate links at the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). It is promoting technologies that endanger peoples’ rights and access to food.

– The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is increasingly driven by corporate actors interested in the financialization of nature and not by the need to conserve biodiversity.

– Private sector interests are increasingly seeking ways to treat water as a tradable commodity while depriving people of their universal right to water and endangering access to water and sanitation for millions of people worldwide.

– The UN Global Compact allows companies to boost their image by (mis-)using the UN flag for their own benefit, yet fails to deliver real improvements in business behaviour.

– The UN has been working very closely with big business in developing and promoting the concept of ‘Green Economy’ which is selling out nature and people, and greenwashing a broken and unfair economic system at the expense of sustainable development.

Activ8

riot20 is a non-violent artivist organism gathered around Rio+20 to raise the profile of real solutions while denouncing false solutions being presented at this conference, through our creative expressions. our focus is on DIRECT ACTION, employing our creative talents to create the world the people deserve